On Thursday, Harvard University announced its 2024 academic year. financial reportrevealed. Donations decreased by nearly 15% Compared to the previous year, this was the largest decrease in the last 10 years.
Ivy League schools received $1.38 billion in donations in 2023, according to the report. plummeted to $1.17 billion In 2024.
“We started working to understand where and how we could improve.”
Despite its decline, Harvard University never lost its position as the world's wealthiest university. In fiscal year 2024, Ivy League schools earned a 9.6% return on their $53.2 billion worth of endowment funds.
The large drop in donations was attributed to several of Harvard's top donors announcing they would suspend donations due to the university's inadequate response to pro-Hamas campus protests. It will be done.
In January, Kenneth Griffinfounder and CEO of hedge fund Citadel LLC, called Harvard University students “whining snowflakes” and said he would no longer donate to the university.
“I want to change that, and I've made that clear to the board members,” Griffin said. “But I am unwilling to support Harvard University until it makes clear that it will resume its role of educating America's young men and women to be leaders, problem solvers, and tackle difficult problems. there is no.”
He accused Harvard and other elite universities of “losing themselves in a wasteland of microaggressions and a DEI agenda that appears to have no real end goal.”
Griffin previously donated more than $500 million to Harvard University.
Bill Ackman, founder and CEO of hedge fund firm Pershing Square Capital Management, also announced that he would no longer donate to his alma mater.
“The root cause of anti-Semitism at Harvard is the ideological, oppressor/oppressed framework that is propagated on campus, which serves as an intellectual bulwark behind the protests and creates anti-Israel and anti-Semitic I learned that I was helping to create hate speech and harassment,” Ackman wrote in a lengthy statement. × post.
Billionaire philanthropist Leonard V. Blavatnik has canceled his donation after giving $200 million, the largest donation ever made to Harvard Medical School.
Former Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned in January following a massive plagiarism scandal amid already mounting criticism for her mishandling of pro-Hamas protests.
Harvard University's new president, Alan Garber, wrote a message in the Ivy League school's latest financial report, saying that Harvard has “begun an effort to understand where and how we can improve.”
“Our task force, which fights anti-Semitism, anti-Israel bigotry, and anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian bigotry, is committed to creating not just a sense of belonging, but true acceptance among members of our community. We are focused on rebuilding,” Gerber wrote.
He said the school's two working groups had “outlined a path to more meaningful communication and constructive disagreement.”
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